Night gradually gave way to dawn as the sun spread it's sunshine over the land.
Ye Mo who has been sleeping in his house suddenly opened his eyes. Getting up he turned around and walked out of his small accomodation towards the city center.
It was where the three martial institutes of the city took place, the tiger martial institute, the sky martial institute and the golden martial institute.
The four major clans which were the li, gao, yan and shen clan resided each in the north, east, south and west respectively.
They clash against each other a lot for ressources and territories and fight would regularly break out between their members but they would never engage in conflict against the martial institutes.
It was because institutes were slightly stronger than clans as it was a place specially made for cultivation, they had better martial arts, pills and their cultivators were more poweful though clans compensated this by being more numerous and united.
But the most important was that martial institutes never tried to enlarge their territories or fight for the city businesses. They kept a low-profile and never participated in the struggles between the powers of Azure Water city. They were wholeheartedly focused on finding promising disciples.
Their only job was to nurture good seeds and send them to the sect they were affiliated to which would reward them afterwards. The more talented the disciple was the more ressources they would receive but if he turned out to be a disappointment they wouldn't get anything.
Ye Mo arrived in the center of Azure Water city. He had never been there before, the old man clearly told him it was too dangerous as there were many strong cultivators in this place so he had to ask passers-by the way to the Tiger Martial institute.
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He somewhat found his way taking turns left and right and arrived in a wide area filled to the brim with thousands of people and incessant chatting resounded everywhere.
Most of them were youths standing on a huge square, some were excitedly talking together while others were motionless. In front of them were huge iron doors and just above the main gate was a signboard with the three characters, "Tiger Martial Institute", engraved in calligraphy style writing. Each stroke was grand and magnificent making people immediately notice it when passing by.
Beside the square he could see many stalls with middle aged men in sleeveless light brown martial outfit sitting behind. In front of each one was a huge queue of around a hundred kids sometime accompanied waiting in line.
Despite the large number of participants it was very orderly and no one was cutting in line or bothering someone else. This was a special rule of the institution to maintain equity and anyone breaking it would be beaten to the brink of death and thrown out. They were never allowed to participate again no matter their background or status.
Ye Mo approached the shortest queue and waited. Fortunately participants were registered relatively fast and after less than an hour it was his turn.
"Name and age?" The man in front of Ye Mo had a short beard and didn't let him say anything, immediately asking a question. Disdain flashed in his eyes.
"Ye Mo, twelve." Of course Ye Mo saw it but he didn't care, he was focused on the competition. Without greeting him he flatly answered.
The man inscribed something on a token and gave it to him. It was just a simple wooden token with his name and age on the back of it.
"Take this and go wait with the others." He said pointing to the square.
Ye Mo put the token in his pocket and left. He didn't show it but he was slightly frustrated. He had enough of waiting. It was a waste of time he could use to train and cultivate but he had to put up with it.
The stall owner didn't mind Ye Mo attitude. It might not seem like it but every members in charge of registering the participants were foundation establishment realm cultivators. The man could clearly see Ye Mo had no cultivation. Kids like him were cannon fodder quickly eliminated by the real experts in the recruitments.
In the thousands of youths coming every time, most of them were in the same case as Ye Mo, ordinary kids with no cultivation but they thought they were destined to become dragons among men in a single day. Like doing some push ups and slashing the wind with a sword was enough or just determination and a bit of luck would do the trick but the man knew almost none of them would remain in the end.